Formosan, Famed
by Coins Compressed
Summary: Beauty is beauty and that's all very good, but beauty alone is a hazard. / Taiwan rarepair challenge. Femslash, het, and varying drabble universes.


**AN: **A challenge was posed to me by some roleplay partners: attempt pairing Taiwan all over the place. This collection of writings is the result, a blend of both human!AU and canonverse, het and femslash. The Switzerland one was especially requested, hence why it's the longest by far, psh.

**List: **Vietnam, Iceland, Hungary, England, Romania, South Korea, Switzerland, Canada, Germany, Russia, Seychelles.

* * *

**Formosan, Famed**

* * *

**Tower (Vietnam)**

It was supposed to be one of those defining moments. Ceremonious. Memorable for centuries to come, because even if an individual wasn't present, they'll be able to appreciate the sheer beauty of the moment through absorbing written accounts, viewing evocative tapestries, admiring calico paintings.

As far as moments go, it's not one Mei had experienced anything similar to before – though she's been well-trained for it. She's spent her whole life within the conical top of a cylindrical tower, and her time's subsequently not been much good for anything else past studying the etiquette.

Today is the day, she knows; there's no denying this because she's always been able to sense it. Every good locked-away princess can, and those that say they can't are simply not worthy of receiving this, _the_ moment, defining and without comparison.

It just didn't go the way all those books had planned for her.

Her prince was supposed to have appeared from the forests she's been overlooking for years, riding out through trees she's watched grow from feeble shoots. She would've smiled, and her beauty would've temporarily blinded the nobleman sent purely to find her; their eyes were going to meet, eternity trapped within a singular, isolated moment, as isolated as Mei has been for seventeen summers.

That's not how it went down.

"I'm not sure who you are-" a pout, a frown, slender hands on slender hips, "-but you're not the Prince I wanted. You're quite clearly far more _womanly_ than I was told you'd be, and I just don't know if I'm into that sort of thing."

So the dainty Princess Mei finds herself saying, tone a tad huffier than she'd wanted it to be - when really, she should've only been cooing and singing to seduce the man come to fetch her.

"I'm sorry I'm not what you expected," the not-so-princely horsewoman says. Her voice is accented, a foreigner to these parts; not that Mei's had much experience with accents of her own realm to begin with. "You see, I've been staying at the inn of the nearest town for quite some time now, and I just couldn't keep listening to their speculation about you every night... I can't imagine it's much fun being locked in a tower like an archetypal distressed damsel."

Mei pauses. She presses her hands to the window-frame, narrowing her eyes to get a better look at the horsewoman below. Dark hair, dark eyes – much like Mei herself, but there's a sadness there that Mei's wonderfully pretty eyes, so gleaming and full of naïve life, have ever had the indecency to hold. Or at least, Mei thinks it's sadness. It could just be disillusionment.

"You're correct." Mei pulls back, straightens up, long sleeves tumbling down the slopes of her arms when they come to rest at her sides. "I wasn't expecting someone like you. Sex aside, you're modestly dressed, modestly spoken and modestly minded, from the sounds of it."

The rider says nothing, simply offers a curt nod. She stares, and Mei stares back, and nothing's going to get achieved but for some reason-

It feels nice. Comfortable. To be able to talk to someone that isn't her parents or the witch paid to mind her, that's a benefit enough to Mei on its own, but this rescuing stranger seems pleasant enough, if the sword by her hip isn't paid much heed.

Mei considers it. She taps her finger to her still-pouting lip (because princesses pout; everyone knows that's sensual without losing class). Her options appear to be waiting it out for a prince that might not bother his arse, or allowing this quiet, brooding figure to whisk her away.

It's going to be one of those defining moments.

* * *

**Photograph (Iceland)**

He is silver embodied, and he has no business being in the streets of Taipei.

They're silver enough as it is; he's a figure without motion upon industrial roads, the crowds moving around him in waves while he allows a tide of his own to take him. Buildings without windows, and buildings made of nothing but, shift to let him through like they're continental shelves, disastrous and pounding illusions that leave Mei with a headache from watching that boy make his way past without speaking to a single soul.

Temporary though it may be, this infatuation isn't going to drop away by itself. Mei hurries to keep up with him, her thoughts fleeting, and she muses over silly little things she'll never receive an answer to – things she'll never again _want_ answered, anyway. His name, his country, what he calls home and what he calls puzzling, the exact shade of those eyes that seem purple and blue and deep _silver_ all at once.

Her hands hurt; she's been gripping the camera far too tightly, something she's only paying the price for now. She wants to capture him, that's all – a single image to frame and store away. Tourists are plenty here though she knows he's something different, despite all the sneaky little snaps she's managed to take of people that intrigued her to varying degrees before.

At least she hasn't been noticed yet, her shoes noisy in a constant clack because all she can think to do is follow. Sometimes she's been caught out, when gathering her pieces of curiosity. This particular boy is enough to leave her suffering heart-attack horrors whenever she thinks, for a few seconds, she may have lost him - and she is lucky, really, that the one to catch her eye this time is just so _blatant_, a phantom from somewhere far across the ocean with no direction to speak of.

They turn a corner.

He stops. Her hands, they lift by themselves, camera at the ready while he lets out a breath held from streets ago.

She captures all his shades of silver, from the clothes he's wearing to the slicked hair atop his head. Her questions will receive further clues, pointers towards their solutions, but this, this is enough.

She doesn't want the truth of his identity to ruin the fun she finds in pretending.

* * *

**Escape (Hungary)**

Three weeks have passed since _they_ first ran into each other, in the most literal way possible – both wanted a haven but which, they couldn't tell. Mei had direction in mind, to get away from the Revolution; where to run and who to turn to, connections and people and places alive; she surrendered and yielded when Erzsébet strongly insisted.

To be in fear is a little like love.

They have been driving for hours and the road doesn't look like a road any more, a dusty stretch transformed into the metaphor Mei had thought it was, then lost sight of when nothing ever came to fruition. Erzsébet's grip on the wheel gets tighter and tighter while Mei watches for longer and longer, that wilderness wasteland past the windows of the car hardly worth examining now the surplus of bodies has dried up along with it.

Mei says, "Aren't you sleepy?"

Erzsébet says, "I've felt worse."

Regardless, the growl of her stomach says she's hungry. There's food in the glove compartment.

Mei watches it like she's expecting something but she'd never be so rude as to satisfy her own hunger with the things Erzsébet collected; they're a part of her vehicle and a part of her arsenal, though she'd said before that Mei was welcome to anything.

"What's mine is yours. You're just as much mine as the rest of it."

Erzsébet promised she'd show Mei to sanctuary. There's dependence there, but it's just as uncertain.

Mei leans back, rubs at her eye with the ball of her palm – and she thinks they are running, though that much is a metaphor, still. Their fuel is depleting while their dreams are expanding.

Mei says, "Are we going to make it?"

Erzsébet says, "_You _will, and I'll take you as far as I need to."

To be in love is to fear for the future.

* * *

**Late (England)**

Eight at night, and only now has it started to rain. The clouds have been whimpering in their grey shades and snivelled rolls since eight in the morning, though she hadn't truly expected them to unleash their bastardly sob-stories before she could get home.

_Of course_ the bus would be late. _Of course_ the bus would be late when it's raining. _Of course_ the bus would be late when it's raining and she doesn't have an umbrella.

There must be someone to blame for this, or so she thinks as she's huddling in on herself, head drooping to stare at crossed arms as her hair begins to damply cling to her cheeks. She hasn't internally managed to deduce the culprit by yet, but she apparently has plenty of time in which to do so while she's treated to a free shower at the pleasure of Mother Nature.

"…Darn," she says, and thinks herself dreadfully daring for doing so. She's angry, after all; why shouldn't she let just a little loose? Wouldn't want to go too far, but the bus stop, tiny pole stuck in the ground that it might be, isn't exactly the current talk of the town.

She's alone and it's dark and it's _raining_. Darn, darn, and double-darn for good measure.

"I agree," says the bus stop, although she soon remembers bus stops can't actually talk. She lifts her head, as much as her heavy and saturated hair will allow, to see which of the inanimate objects around her _did_ utter such a phrase, only to find she's suddenly gained a fellow sufferer.

It's a bastard under an umbrella.

"Not like this route to be late," says the bastard, checking their watch – watch! – whilst balancing said umbrella against their suited shoulder. They are smartly-dressed and messy-haired, so it's no wonder Mei detests them for managing to stay dry. "I've only used it a few times, granted, and you seem somewhat more local than me, but I was honestly expecting to have missed it by now… I'm assuming I haven't, if you're still here."

"You haven't," Mei says. Her tone is not as curt as she wanted it to be. She can't simply think of people as bastards for having more foresight than her, after all. "I-I didn't expect it to be raining. That's why I'm not, ah…"

"You're perfectly welcome to come under here."

Mei goes quiet, unable to think of anything to say in response regardless, simply raising an eyebrow at Mr. Umbrella. His own eyebrows shoot up in response, quickly changing her internal moniker for him into Mr. Caterpillars from the sheer weight of them.

"I do apologise. That sounded a bit creepy. I'm not your common-or-garden molester, Miss, I'm simply concerned you'll catch some kind of cold and succumb to an untimely death while we wait a few centuries for this bloody _bus_."

"Ah," says Mei. "I see."

She fixes her gaze to his face, attempting to determine how honest he is – and he's simply staring back, eyes wider than would otherwise be socially acceptable, a rabbit caught in the metaphorical headlights of Mei's attempted glare. After what feels like a few centuries all unto itself, she stops; she develops an amused smile instead, allowing herself that much, because he's slowly begun to hold out the brolly partway as a bridge of amnesty.

_Of course_ Mother Nature would deliver a reasonably-attractive man with an umbrella to her in a time of crisis. Mother Nature's got her back.

* * *

**Myth (Romania)**

She is the girl that walks in her sunlight; he is the shadow that dwells in the dark. She is oppression of understood insight; he is the forest, the flowers, the bark.

She is the East and the mysteries spread there; he is the West and the military child. She is the product of personal warfare; he is the product of Empires riled.

She is the smile of the patient and waiting; he is the mending of hands over hearts. She is the purged of societal hating; he is the judged and the player of parts.

She is the mountainous range of a choir; he is the culture of understood lies. She is the dancer through consequence dire; he is the garden left warm where she lies.

* * *

**Echo (South Korea)**

It's summer, and she's looked over her shoulder enough all season to end up one-hundredth-time lucky.

He was standing with flowers, but nothing so Western as a bouquet – he'd simply bundled them all into the cradle of his arms, waiting for the right moment to shower her with them.

Taiwan ruined his plan. South Korea ruined her morning.

Granted, it had been horrible enough to begin with; she'd woken with a headache (_they've been so plentiful these days_) and an itch in her feet (_can't run across a continent, can't border-hop from June_). She hadn't even noticed him slinking into her boundaries, however he'd managed to get there, and she feels she has a right to be a bit peeved about such matters.

In the present, she's asking, "What do you _want_?". It's a question she's been asking since their gazes first met, when she gave her vigilant check towards what could be following her (_because again I look back, and again I look back_).

As with her previous attempts, he doesn't respond. He doesn't ignore her, simply offers a mundane topic of conversation to focus on instead – and this time, he cries, "There's a beach down there, you know!"

She indulges him. She always does.

"I know there's a beach! I live here – I _am _here! But you can't just turn up in a lady's rather extended gardens uninvited... that's a little creepy. A phone call ahead would've been nice!"

South Korea shrugs. Sort of. He flops out his arms, bent at the joint, puffing out his cheeks like a petulant child.

"You're the one who kept looking back for me, da-ze! I know you were expecting me. Nice weather, nice girl; you should know I'd want to come see you."

(He_ should know,_ she thinks. There's no witchcraft or intuition in staying alert, and _he should know how it is to feel the grind of the chin over the shoulder every time the horizon's too quiet; again I look back, again I look back._)

"That's sweet," Taiwan says. She means it; the smile she's wearing now is far more genuine than the one she had to give earlier, when her government met to discuss well-worn uncertainty. "It's nice to get visitors, even if they are unexpected – I wouldn't mind going somewhere, Korea."

She knows it all like the back of her hand, though of course, it's not _just _the back of her hand. It's every fibre of her hair and every eyelash on her lid, the soft underside of her breast and the harsh protrusion of her knee. She lives because her land thrives.

The headaches, though, they're just political.

"I shouldn't be unexpected," he insists, arms flailing somewhat as if attempting to work in emphasis. "You should always expect me! I-I'd stay here if I could, but you'd probably get sick of the mess, right?"

Her smile softens, lingers. They're both well aware of why he can't stay, and it's not just his own duties holding him back – he's not supposed to be here to begin with.

Taiwan is not oblivious to what he thinks of her, ingenuous antediluvian with a boyish face to hide it. She just knows it would be cruel to indulge it. She's unstable, unsure – and oh, he's just the same. His horizons get quiet and he has to look back too, but he, he has the continent surrounding him, a border with the enemy unseen lain beyond.

"Sure," she says, quietly. "Sure, I get sick of messes in a heartbeat, Korea."

_Again I look back. Again I look back._

* * *

**Merriment (Switzerland)**

Let it never be said that Basch Zwingli hasn't seen some curious things in his time. He's seen plenty, and to list them all here would, dear reader, be a waste of your time and a waste of your senses – but make no mistake that our hero is a man of the world, albeit not a man of many words as a result.

Switzerland, the home of our favourite curmudgeon, is a land of unique culture and beautiful landscape, with plenty of local legends inherent enough to be told by many a bard. Basch, however, did not like this culture. He did not like the scenery. He did not like bards, mainly because he did not like singing. This, perhaps, made the nature of his work all the more confusing.

Along with his charming younger sister Louisa, Basch ran the best tavern in the best village in the best country in Europe. Such is subjective, of course, but even I think it was a rather decent tavern, and I can't drink – the curse of being a disembodied narrator. This opinion was made after observing its warm atmosphere, emphasis on hospitality, and the constant laughter-line smiles of people frequenting the place for drinks and dinner.

Our story takes place in the inn, during one fateful Winter night neither Basch nor his sister will likely forget. The festivities of New Year's Eve were in full swing, any lag in conversation nothing a drink wouldn't solve - but the main attraction was, as befits a small village without much of a tourism industry, the _stranger_ that had wandered into the premises.

She was not like the people he usually served, not just in race but in character. Her hair was dark as ebony and her skin seemed as soft as the frost accumulating across his window panes, though she was hardly Snow White. Her smile wasn't restrained, her manners far from noble – she freely conversed with whoever approached her, speech somewhat stilted due to mild language barriers, something she made up for with raw cheery enthusiasm.

This was yet another thing Basch did not like. At first.

He was, truth be told, somewhat scared of her. He made Louisa serve her and report back on what she'd responded with, building up a mental profile of how such a woman operated while keeping himself firmly away from her at the other side of the room. He washed mugs and plates when he had to, stoked the fire when it started to falter, his work _almost_ enough to distract him from the stranger's tinkling laugh.

_Almost _would've suited Basch just fine, as he really had no intention of getting to know her. He'd hear enough about her after she'd left, of course, a traveller passing through that the village would enjoy making a legend out of for weeks to come. What he hadn't counted on, what he hadn't considered, was _her _approaching _him._

"How are you!" was her greeting, spoken in the manner of an individual merely stating 'hello'. "I am Mei Xiao. MeiMei Xiao! Do you have a name?"

Basch merely glared at her, because of course he had a name. He crossed his arms, going quite still behind his bar, and grumbled to her his response.

"Interesting," she said, and the look of concentration she took on seemed to suggest she really _did _find it interesting. "I'm pleased to meet you! You looked lonely so I thought I would talk to you, too – everyone here is just so friendly!"

With that, she developed the decency to move back, simply standing in front of the bar itself. Her dainty hands rubbed along her cheeks as she continued displaying the widest smile he'd ever seen on a woman, a man, an individual of the human persuasion – her sleeves were far too long, big ruffled things that fell to settle in a flowery flump around her elbows.

"Are you looking for a drink?" he asked, in his usual gruff tone. Women shouldn't be out by themselves, not for alcohol, but this particular lady didn't seem to know native customs – and Basch struggled to care either way.

Her grin seemed to expand in response. "I was looking for conversation! You're not the talkative type, are you? I want to meet as many people as I can and you look like you know a few stories, at least."

"I'm not going to sing," he said quickly.

(You have to make these things clear to people, dear reader, or you, too, may end up reciting the adventures of Wilhelm Tell over the backing of a tasteful ukulele orchestra.)

"I didn't ask you to sing." She tilted her head, hands pressed flat to her cheeks, and _oh, _if only you could've seen them – she'd gone wonderfully rosy from exposure to the tavern's warm interior, youthful and plump and jovial to boot. Basch decided he quite liked the look of her, yes, but he still wasn't so sure about all her silly laughter. "I asked you to talk to me, but I understand if you'd rather not."

To send her away would be to lose his post for watching her, finding himself somewhat intrigued by the way her straight dusky hair would swing as she childishly swayed her head. He didn't know what to think of her, of the presence she gave – but he found himself just as intrigued as his patrons. Such must simply be the Swiss way, he decided, justifying the response he gave next.

"I don't mind. I don't have much to tell you, not like you seem to think I do, but I'm not going to ignore a customer."

Basch liked to make money, you see.

"A customer!" she repeated, sounding positively dismayed in an approximate wail. "Silly! I want to make friends. I've never been so far into Europe before – it's all new and the people are nice, but it must be interesting running one of these quaint taverns. We have similar places back home, though I don't really visit them..."

With that, she pouted. She looked just as pretty pouting as she did smiling, and if Basch's own cheeks had gone red by that point, it most likely wasn't merely the room's heat behind the phenomenon.

He had, over the course of a few years, grown to know everyone that would stop by – she was new, and because she was new, she was noteworthy, and because she was noteworthy, he found himself noting her atmosphere just as much. Basch may have been a somewhat irritable man, but he wasn't adverse to receiving happiness and affability from others.

"They said," began Mei, without letting Basch actually respond, "that they'll dance and they'll kiss when it's midnight."

Basch grimaced, said simply, "Yes."

"Do _you_ dance? Because you don't look like you kiss."

Outrage! Basch folded his arms and narrowed his eyes, a holy matrimony of gestures borne from mild irritation. "I can't dance behind a bar. I've been kissed a few times upon a New Year, though it's mainly Louise who does so, and to my cheek."

Mei paused, gaze directed to the floor as she considered what he'd told her – and he didn't mind the silence, not in the least, because it gave him chance to admire her mouth without her lips fluttering around in speech. He quite liked her voice, nevertheless. It was something new.

When she looked back at him again, not a minute later, her smile had returned to its rightful place, the impression she gave just as radiant as before. "Then it's settled," she said; she gave a curt nod, which led him to feel only confusion along with that warmth.

"Settled?"

"Yes!"

He simply shook his head. "I don't understand..."

Regardless, she was already reaching across to pull over a bar-stool. "I'm going to stay here until that midnight comes, and your sister will find her role taken enough for her lips to greet someone else's. You'll manage to tell me a few stories until then!"

And that was probably the first time in Basch's life that he wasn't thinking of Louise's chastity first, because blankly gawking in pleasant surprise is a far more engaging activity.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean to kiss you!"

"Why would you _want _to?"

"Why would I not?"

Faced with such dazzling logic, Basch found himself unable to argue.

"You know, everyone I've spoken to has mentioned you," said Mei, leaning forward on those elbows and impossibly long sleeves. "They say this is the best tavern in Switzerland, and I've made so many friends because of it – that's why. It's a thank-you."

"I don't require thanks-"

"Surely you must enjoy receiving rewards for your work?"

She giggled, then. The corners of his lips tugged _up; _Basch, man of the world that he was, viewer of curious things and curious people, suddenly found himself wishing to indulge in the art of yarn-ridden conversation.

I shan't bore you with the details, reader, because, as with every chronicle of courtship and cordiality, there was laughter and liking and smiling and _hands_, shyly reaching out to touch and take and examine. In the best tavern in Switzerland, such was hardly unfamiliar behaviour, and the customers paid the pair no heed – though to them, they found each other the most interesting individuals in the room. There was nobody else, save the occasional few that butted in to demand more ale, or beer, or whatever it was that took their celebrative fancy.

But this, this is the tale of how the liker of dislikes came to like the concept of liking, and here, I shall assume you need no ending – you'll be able to work out the end, the pin-point moment being midnight on the dot.

This much I shall show you:

Prior to our particular midnight, by about a minute, Mei was flushed and delighted and energised. And prior to this same midnight, again by about a minute, Basch was smiling. That's all.

For Basch, smiling was a feat enough in itself.

He hadn't forgotten her earlier statements, of course, which is why he flickered his gaze between the couples assembling in ready pairs for bringing in the latest of years, celebrating the death of the old with a union of lips. He turned his attention to Mei in the end, raising an eyebrow to ask, "What of kissing?"

"I'd be happy to," she blurted, almost before he'd finished speaking. "If your upfront payment was in anecdotes, that is."

"...How long are you staying here?"

"However long I need."

"I think you'll have an estimate."

And to that, Mei had simply resumed with her grin.

* * *

**Sympathy (Canada)**

He was quiet, and his hands trembled with the second suicide he'd ever let her see. She was going through the motions, irreparably beautiful as tragedy makes her type more desirable.

They'll say it was the wrong time, the wrong place, victims of circumstance and lyrical tragedy; Shakespeare was not a doctor

and she's no healer. She was there, his eyes the void she stood by, lived by, breathed by -realms of no discernible emotion until all she could see was her own sympathy.

When she met him last, just a ripple, reflected face in the lake overlooking her own, he was flaxen in more than his hair, but in his skin, in the chambers of a heart that couldn't swim.

It was simply a part of her nature to cry, like the nature of all living things is to die.

* * *

**Proposition (Germany)**

"I really think we should just get it over with."

So begins Taiwan, seated opposite a rather perplexed Germany, a somewhat coy smile present on her lips as she considers fluttering her lashes a bit - and Germany tenses, sits upright to give the islander nation across the table his undivided attention.

"Get _what _over with?"

"_It._"

He pauses. Rightly so.

Perhaps puppy eyes would be a better route for her to take, because they would be _far_ more appropriate.

"If this is about what you asked before..." He speaks quietly, allowing his voice to trail off before adjusting the knot of his tie. The action doesn't assist in making him seem any less stiff and he seems to realise this, hastily adding, "I just don't feel suitable."

"I'd say you're _very _suitable," she says, tone something like a purr; that's perhaps _not_ as appropriate. She leans across the table, just a tad, finding the pre-meeting discussion far more intriguing than the promise of what the meeting itself might entail. "I can't think of anyone else I'd rather ask – and it's not like I can attempt it by myself! You wouldn't want to leave a poor, vulnerable lady stranded with such a problem, would you?"

Germany adopts a grimace. "I'm not sure that's how I'd describe you-"

"I've not finished speaking." Taiwan presses a finger to her lips in demonstration. "You seem to think I haven't weighed up the positives alongside the negatives. Besides, I've never _done it _before, you can't expect me to know the whole procedure – don't you _want_ to?"

"Ah," says Germany, and it's all he says for quite some time, deciding that now is the time to look away from her. He finds the wall at the other end of the room far more interesting than his conversational partner, only turning back once he's managed to take on a rather imposing scowl. "I admit it's something I'm... _interested _in, but I still don't think you urgently require _my_ assistance when someone else could do just the same job."

Taiwan does not like this response.

"Is it _me? _Is it because I'm the one asking? I bet if someone like Italy asked, you'd do it with him-!"

"That's not what I'm saying at all!" His hands fly up in a defensive gesture, that scowl softening as he goes on, "It's not that I'm against you as a person, and it's something I'd consider in other circumstances, but I just have a feeling that – well, that _my _tastes in such an area would be very different from _yours_. I know how difficult the first time can be; I wouldn't want to make it a disaster for you."

"I'm perfectly capable of turning down something I don't like," she says swiftly. "I merely want you there for guidance. You're the most capable person I can think of, so I'll ask again..." She throws out her arms, reaching across the table to flex her fingers at him, positive such a vague gesture will make him more open while a wide grin makes itself known on her face. "_Please_?"

He is silent. He is _angry. _He is not as scary to her as he might think he is, and she simply watches with that same whimsical smile until he feels it's right to respond.

"...Fine." Germany swats at her hands with a swoop of his own. "I'll help you pick out a damn dog. But as it's the first time you've adopted one, I must insist you follow breed guidelines with regards to how difficult they may be in training, and-"

Mission accomplished, that's around about the time Taiwan zones out.

* * *

**Rendezvous (Russia)**

"I'm not offering absolution."

Such should be obvious enough from the atmosphere, but she still feels the need to make it clear; standing her ground has always been a dangerous game in his presence. Her voice is hoarse, throat dry from hours without water – an island body with nothing to drink, and _he_, he's walking intimidation.

It is not, as may be the immediate assumption, in the difference of their physical bodies. Small though Taiwan may feel at the present, she finds intimidation in the placement of his hands. His palms are pressed flat to the table, fingers splayed across shreds of paper torn from the very document they're here to discuss.

There's one excuse he's going to offer. That's all.

One simple snippet of information she's supposed to accept as gospel, though she doesn't know what else she was expecting – friendship? Is that what she'd call it? Russia certainly wouldn't, their treaty not even a decade old on this, the day he's come to break it. Teacher wants it to be so, which is the real excuse Russia would give, if he could be so honest about his motivations.

That being said, Taiwan knows herself to be an optimist, but she's never counted herself as a fool – she is alone, in matters political, societal and even geographical, her islands the jewels of her glorious mainland.

The mainland that won't give her water.

Russia leans back, clasping his hands at the small of his back; she feels safer now they're out of sight, unable to harm agreements she'd rather burn later by herself. "I'm doing it for my people," he says, eyes soft above a drooping smile. "I'm sorry that it can't be what we agreed on, but you must understand where I'm coming from..."

"I do," she says, brisk in tone to prevent him from rambling. "You've chosen your allegiances because you've a populace to think of. Offering me recognition in the eyes of mankind is very different from acknowledging me here, a being living and breathing and talking to you. Right?"

His smile gives up.

He lifts his glass, Eastern patterns across the cylinder of it preventing her from seeing what, exactly, he's drinking; Taiwan isn't envious that he has it, hospitality embedded in the very core of her being, but she does feel somewhat put out that the whole day is at her expense. It would've been nice to get something back.

Her gaze shifts to his face, once she's decided enough silence has passed. He's still sipping, slow, eyes half-lidded, though she finds herself far more fascinated by the bob of his throat and the pulse of his chest. Breathe in, and out; they're both still living, even if there's an ache where her heart should be – she's never seen one of _their _kind savaged, but she's seen her people suffer. Does she even have a heart there? Would she romanticise it if she did?

The glass clinks against the table, his lips pursed before he replies. When he does speak, it's so _quiet, _so much so that she'd barely believe he said it if he hadn't been staring directly.

"It's correct I found it a difficult call, and it's correct that I did what I had to. That doesn't mean, _dorogoy, _when thinking of facts, I wasn't still thinking of you."

* * *

**Dysfunction (Seychelles)**

There is nothing so beautiful as beauty itself.

This is something Mei's learnt, not just from experience but from _existence_; she wished for it, once, to be walking diamond, the eternal Celestial maiden of folklore and fancy and nothing so subtle as substance. Such a wish didn't come true, because only one creature in a vein like that can ever be present in Earthly boundaries – the position wasn't vacant when Mei wanted it.

There's no mystery behind it. Mei has _seen_ her_, _that impossible embodiment of oceans and solitude, and a glance alone was enough to change Mei's mind on what she held dear, what she counted as worthwhile and solid. A touch was all it took. One touch, the glory of illusion a lost cause upon bestowed contact; Mei knelt before it, receiving only a whisper and whimper as reward for submission to Africa's most breath-taking malevolence.

_Open it. Open the lotus of your mouth; open it._

It was a hopeless sort of love from the start. Mei still feels it, her own lips parted, the thumb pressed between them a dead weight against her teeth. It _hurt, _but this is the price of a beauty unrivalled. It's painful. It shatters things, everything; it draws out a love that's shallow and sickening, a love that Mei gladly gave because she'd thought it something better, something beautiful enough in its own right.

Beauty is beauty and that's all very good, but beauty alone is a hazard.

* * *

**x-x**


End file.
